A Texas-sized thanks to all participants—FSI guests and local practitioners—for making the event a fantastic success! We at the TLC could not be happier with the day’s presentations and workshops, and were thrilled to see so many of our local colleagues both in the morning and at the afternoon workshop tables.

Of course, the agenda—as spectacular as it may be—is only the beginning of a great conference. In the spirit of collaboration, we hope that you will take the time to fill out the comment box below with your questions, reactions, and especially suggestions. We are keenly interested to know how the TLC might assist you in making good use of the knowledge and experience our FSI guests have been able to share, as well as how the TLC might help to enliven dialog on the topic of language pedagogy at the University generally.

In the meantime, look for updates to the conference homepage, to include links to presentation slides, handout materials, and other relevant Internet and scholarly resources.

One Response to Revisiting Proficiency: 21st Century Views on Language Learning

I am a grad student at the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at UT Austin, and a 6- and 2-year student of Russian and Georgian respectfully. Although my own research and interests focus on the politics of the former Soviet region and not language pedagogy per se, the conference’s topic of language proficiency and proficiency-based language training is one that rightly concerns not only myself, but all students and professionals engaged with non-english-language materials, and non-english-language organizations, populations and governments located both domestically in the United States and abroad.

The overarching theme of the morning papers and discussion, that of embracing and incorporating social-networking internet materials such as Facebook and Twitter into in-class and out-of-class proficiency-based language instruction, is incredibly timely and encouragingly progressive.

Most valuable was undoubtedly the afternoon workshop following the morning panel discussion. The opportunity to sit down with the panelists from the Foreign Service Institute, alongside fellow language students and practitioners, and discuss our specific hopes and concerns related to language teaching and acquisition was truly invaluable and eye-opening.

To the TLC:

This was an amazing opportunity and experience for all of us who participated, and I am not alone in calling for more conferences, symposiums and workshops in this style, and concerning these topics. Bravo, and keep up the good work!

To University faculty, students and members of the community:

Do yourself a favor and mark the next TLC-sponsored event on your calendar, and triple-underline it.